Answer:
Any enumeration of business processes should strive for a reasonably detailed outcome, which needs to be aligned with the organization’s specific goals of process management. For most organizations, as a rule of thumb, this will boil down to a dozen to a couple of dozens of business processes. Very large and diversified organizations might be better off with identifying a couple of hundred processes. To illustrate this: Within a multi-national investment firm, which employs close to 3,000 staff and holds assets in the range of € 300 million 120 different business processes have been identified. To each of these business processes a process owner is assigned, who oversees the performance of the process and monitors the achievement of its objectives in terms of customer satisfaction, profitability, and accountability. Detailed process models are kept up-to-date, both as a means for documenting planned changes to any process and for satisfying the requirements of financial authorities. By contrast, for a small medical clinic in the Netherlands, which employs medical specialists, nurses, and administrative staff, 10 different treatment processes have been identified. A few of these have been mapped in the form of process models and are now in the process of being automated with a business process management system. For all other processes, it is sufficient to be aware of the distinctive treatment options they can provide to different patient categories.